Russia's basketball teams are being warned that a new Eastern European league is only for the country's elite clubs.
Russia's top clubs are ditching their national Professional Basketball League to take part exclusively in a competition based on the VTB United League, which features clubs from nine other countries, in a move tentatively slated for next season.
“It is naïve to talk about a broad participation of Russian clubs,” the VTB league president Sergei Ivanov said late Thursday.
Ivanov suggested the new league will make infrastucture demands on participating clubs that Russia's lesser teams can't meet, such as minimum-capacity arenas, broadcasting equipment and safety standards.
The new competition is being modeled on hockey's KHL, and like the KHL appears designed to eventually challenge America as the world's undisputed dominant league.
The VTB league has struggled to attract big names because it does not offer qualification for the Euroleague, Europe’s premier basketball competition.
Bringing in Russian teams at the expense of their national league would overcome that hurdle because the competition would automatically determine the Russian national champions, which opens the door to the Euroleague.
Ivanov spelled out why the new league, which officials have said may be inaugurated this summer and is yet to be named, was necessary.
“It basketball broadly popular in our country? I wouldn’t say that. Does anyone watch Russian championship matches on TV? No-one watches them.”
He said that basketball was sustained in Russia by the actions of “influential” basketball fans. “That’s all there, but the federation isn’t part of it.”
“Our top-flight women’s league has vanished. A question to the federation – why?”
Competing interests and complex ownership arrangements may yet stymie the new league, as well as the prickly relations between the various parties.
The Russian basketball federation is suing the VTB league for the return of $1.8 million it says it lent the league for advertising and other expenses. A preliminary hearing into the case was held at a Moscow court on Friday.
